I thought I did a pretty good job communicating that I wouldn’t be posting the daily cable viewership tables anymore. But I got a lot of feedback that leads me to believe I did a horrible job of communicating why. I also did a trash job of communicating what’s next but in my defense that’s because I wasn’t really sure.

Table cessation explanation

I had a very particular web experiment going. It wasn’t about making any money now, but it was to see whether by only posting the daily tables if 5 years down the road I might be able to turn it into a small but meaningful annuity.

The experiment had been going well enough to stick with…until it wasn’t (now). The experiment required that the table posting resemble something like daily posting, but the data receipt was skewing more weekly than daily with no reason to think it would’ve ever gotten any better. I didn’t have and couldn’t line up an alternate source for the data.

The oversimplification is that as a result, the experiment was constantly losing traction. I could’ve offset the traction loss with effort, but the whole point of the experiment was to see if it could be done with little effort.

I’m old. I’m willing to do a little bit of work for a little bit of money (or even no money at all). And I’m willing to do a lot of work for a lot of money.

But I am not willing to do a lot of work for a little bit of money and I wound up in place where that was the only way to salvage this particular experiment and that’s not interesting to me.

If that still doesn’t clarify why I’m stopping the tables then it’s probably best to just accept that I won’t be posting them anymore.

Still, STVR is a lot of fun for me!

Doing the website and in particular the twitter feed were a blast for me. I always (and still) planned to take a month off and then figure out how to start posting some on twitter again.

During the “goodbye tables!” tour a lot of folks reached out in some fashion to tell me that I had a unique voice and perspective on sports media and that they hoped I’d find a way to keep offering it.

I really appreciate all the nice feedback, thank you!

Of course it’s a podcast

One opportunity I’d never considered was all the great on-air, behind the scenes and journalistic talent I’ve encountered as a result of STVR. A lot of those folks seem to enjoy the inside-baseball-y aspects of the business as much as I do.

It seemed plausible to me that at least for some of them, talking about that stuff might be as much fun for them as it is for me.

So I sent out some fliers basically asking “If I launch something, get some reps in and can get any good at it, would it be something that might be fun for you and not just fun for me?”

The responses were pretty enthusiastic.

So, yeah, like everyone and their grandmother, I’m going to start a podcast. Unlike the web experiment, this isn’t about income. It’s just an “old dog, new trick!” experiment. Can I get any good at doing something I’ve never done before? Can I make a podcast that’s interesting for people inside the business and importantly, have some fun doing it?

Maybe not! But I’m very excited to find out. I’m targeting getting back on Twitter late May/early June and starting to get some reps in with the podcast in the mid-to-late June range. Stay tuned.